In which we stare at a blank screen

Here’s a shocker for you. If you do something people don’t like, they storm the barricades and give you a stern talking to. (Like that ever really works.) If you do something they do like, they do not storm the barricades thanking you profusely and telling you what a great job you’re doing. Which means that it’s a good idea to take as one’s personal philosophy the idea that virtue is its own reward.

The Pups was going swimmingly until we had server issues. Since tabroom is server-based, if you’re not connected for whatever reason, you get a blank screen, and there is literally nothing you can do. As people staring at the blank screen, our little team could only curse the gods and, of course, notify CP, who was apparently well aware of the problem, since it was affecting him too. I gather after the fact that he has fixed whatever the problem was, which is way above my pay grade.

As (presumably) a result of this glitch, we had some really interesting problems. As it turned out, I had an incorrect setting on where to focus prefs, which was clear enough after having to go in and manually reassign a bunch of judges. But standard operating procedure in any case is to go over a pairing and check all the judges and fix the assignments where the prefs don’t work, so the wrong setting, aside from making more work, caused no harm. But we did have to change a lot of judges. Whatever. There were three of us, and we had at it, and we ended up with a pairing where everyone had very nice 1s and 2s and, hither and yon, the odd 3. If I’m not mistaken, at the same time the ability of the program to distribute the rooms correctly was thrown off (although this might have been later). This meant a lot of checking and room reassigning, so that judges were not in two places at the same time.

We finally got everything right, with three people, as I said, beavering away at it. We released a pairing and took a breath. What happened next was pretty much impossible for us to understand. A coach came by and was disappointed that one of his down-2s got a 3-3 judge. I sort of naturally assumed that this meant there was nothing better, and dismissed it. But as the round was going on, I took a look to find out why this might have happened—maybe it was an error on our part rather than a lack of any better judges—and found a whole slew of 4s and 5s assigned to down-2s, on a pairing three of us had vetted to insure that there was not a single 4 or 5. That is, we had meticulously cleaned up the pairing, and somehow it had gotten all dirty again. We hypothesized on how this might have happened, and obviously it was related to the server problem, but of course all we could do was the blind guessing of the ignorant. It was hard to explain to CP, too, because since we had fixed it and then it wasn’t fixed anymore on our screens, he had nothing to work with. He does connect it to the server issue, and he has addressed that, so I have no lack of confidence in the system going forward (especially since he’ll be sitting next to me in a couple of weeks at Bronx).

Anyhow, I did feel that the tournament had promised the best judging for down-2s, and we had, for this round, not delivered on that important promise. So we double-byed those rounds. I could not in good faith eliminate folks from contention because we had failed to provide them with the judges they deserved in that situation. I think this was the right decision, and as far as I know, it was accepted as the right decision. Certainly no one was harmed by it, as compared to letting the decisions stand, which may or may not have caused harm. Who knows how a 1-1 would have judged the round compared to how the 5-5 judged it?

The system eventually got back to business, but it was still dinky for a while on the room side. One of the joys of tabroom has been its handling of rooms, compared to TRPC, and the thing is, when there’s even one assignment where a judge is in two places at once, you have no alternative but to check every assignment of room and judge, both ways, for hundreds of pairings. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Thanks to the outage, one way or the other we lost almost 2 hours. Which meant we had no choice but to single-flight the run-off round, which started around 9:00 rather than 7:00. We could, I guess, have put in a single judge rather than panels, but I don’t know how that would have been received. With the virtue of hindsight, it might have been received better than the tough panels that were created. Those tough panels did cause the aforementioned storming of the barricades. I certainly didn’t disagree that many of these panels were brutal, but I can’t say that I react well to being stormed. In any case, it was what it was, and there was nothing that was going to be done about it.

The system was fine after that. Sunday we delivered virtually nothing but 1-1-1 panels. Shockingly, not one of the usual suspect coaches came in to tell us they liked the assignments. We should have tossed a few 4-3s in there just to see if they were still breathing. My guess is that they will remember to their graves the run-off, and never even think anything of the doubles, octo (bid round), quarters or semis panels. (The final, while pretty damned good in my estimation, went off prefs for an all-Pup panel, which is the tradition.)

Here’s the thing. I’m obviously a big supporter of MJP. Anyone who has read my writing knows that. But I’m also a big supporter of things like coaching your students to handle any judges, as compared to using your coaching time to go into tab to complain every time you don’t like the assigned judges. Instead of trying to teach how to persuade a diverse audience, we teach that it is better to persuade tab to deliver a different audience. I doubt if most LD circuit debaters today are capable of winning over any more than a tiny segment of particularly predisosed adjudicators. We are, at best, teaching them to preach to the choir. So it goes, and the train has left the station on this (wow—two clichés in a row), but that doesn’t mean I like it. I’ll give you all the highest prefs I can whenever I tab, because that’s why I earn the nonexistent big bucks. However, if you solicit my opinion on all of this (and perhaps even if you don’t), I’ll be happy to provide it.

In which we don't say much

So today was the final setting up for the Pups. All the hired judges are in and their conflicts marked. I doublechecked the rooms and there seem to be enough of them. I’ve checked the weather and it looks great. I’ve sent out instructions on this and that to the soon-to-be-assembled multitudes, including how we’ll handle judge assignments. (I followed my thoughts from my analysis a while ago over at NDCA, i.e., mutual through 3-3 then whatevah, due to the tiny number of whatevahs that actually come up.)

I also sent out a message to the hordes of the MHL, telling them to join NDCA. Speaking of which, I cast my ballot today for the board openings. And sometime over the weekend I have to get my act together on the MHL Workshop.

Meanwhile, JV is reserving rooms for Princeton. And come to think of it, I’ve already touched based with them, Columbia and Penn about their tournaments. Good grief! The season’s practically over already.

In which we use a word for the first time

We seemed to have cut out all the nautical ribbon clerks early this year. Usually we drift down to the hard core in drips and drabs, but last night there were only a handful of plebes left. The good news is that 3 of them had already signed up, and the other 2 are seniors in it for a lark, which I always like, but I did think we’d pull a few more. I wasn’t that horrible on opening night, I don’t think. I told El Capitano to keep those announcements coming.

We had a practice round last night. I was a little perturbed over a seeming lack of accessible blocks. Maybe I never explained that to them? Jeesh. Given that a topic has a bunch of things that are probably going to be said, debaters should have a bunch of responses ready for those things. Of course, one can go too far, and have blocks locked and loaded but because the contention was more subtle, or really doesn’t fit that particular A/T, the block doesn’t work, but often the debater uses it anyhow. Then again, there’s always the debater who goes first, tells me what the opponent is going so say, and then refutes it before the opponent even opens the old mouth. This solo dance never fails to entertain when the opponent runs something else. Who would have expected that?

Oh, well. At the Pups I’m more worried that everyone show up when and where they’re supposed to than anything else, given that the ship of Hud will sail without me. Usually I drive up the debaters but there’s too many of them to fit in my car, and I have to get there early, yadda yadda yadda, so there’s a parent on the bus with both the debaters and the Speecho-Americans. Oh, well. I was that parent once. She’ll survive.

I’ll be sending out my last marching orders to the Pup field tonight or tomorrow morning. Lots of fun announcements about the student advocate, obligations, how we’ll handle MJP (and no, we won’t be handling it by calling it MPJ), etc. I will do my best to hold a civil tongue in my head, given that no one has done anything shenaniganian yet, and everyone should be preemptively upbraided for the sins of a few.

(You know, I can’t ever remember typing the word upbraided before. Who would have thought…)

In which we kvetch (which we've probably never done before)

We have met the enemy and he is us, as Pogo would say. In other words, Pup prefs have opened. Thousands cheer.

There are three things I can’t talk about. The first one is that X is going to Z. The second is that Y is going to Q. Those I promised to keep my mouth shut about, and you’ll hear for yourself shortly. The third is that, even though it is horrible and everyone involved should be banned for life, I will no say no more, forever. You may or may not agree on that last one, but in my opinion, well, so it goes.

There. I know you like the fact that I keep you up-to-date on everything.

I continue to be amazed at some of the shenanigans we’ve been seeing, with people creating schools or teams out of thin air. Here’s a tip, if that’s your cup of tea. Don’t register using the email of one of the teams. That’s a real beginner’s mistake. You think we’re not going to look there first? Don’t register using the email of someone we know doesn’t work at the place you’re registering. Don’t attempt to hire a hundred judges; we check every request, and if you’ve got lots of kids and no adults, we’ll probably scratch our heads a bit. Don’t register using a variant of your school’s name, and think we won’t notice. Don’t have one person register 20 different schools. The name will ring a bell, Pavlov. Don’t put in a bogus entry for one tournament and expect that we won’t remember when the next tournament comes up. For that matter, don’t pull anything unwise, period, if you want to register for other tournaments. For example, continually not showing up is an offense punishable by not being accepted in the first place. Seriously now, people. It’s the same personnel in every northeast tab room. You think we forget, or don’t talk to one another? Didn’t pay your registration to one tournament? Just try to get into another one. Judges skipped out on breaks? Farewell, my lovely.

It might come as a shock, but schools get a rep. We know who we can count on, and who we can’t count on. We know who will be pulling fast ones, because they pull fast ones every time. We know who will make ridiculous demands, and we know who will come by and offer help and extra judging and a kind word. We know who thinks we’re trying to screw them when we tab (even though, sorry, you’re not worth the effort, no matter how important you think you are), and we know who believes that we’re impartial because, well, we just don’t give a honk which team gets which judge. We know who’s new and comes asking questions and accepts the answers and learns and grows and becomes an old-time pro pretty quickly, and we know who’s arrogant and who knows way more than we do. And this is all universal. That little mafia of tabbers has been there and done that so many times, we’re inured to it. This is not to suggest that most people are asshats; this is far from true. The people I consider rapscallions and bad debate citizens are the ones who are always emailing or breaking down the door to tab. That's a relatively small number. The vast majority of good debate citizens are judging their rounds and organizing their troops and trusting us to do our best while we trust them to do their best. Win/win for those people.

I love that there’s a shenanigans function in tabroom. That is CP all over. I only wish he were able to identify even more shenanigans than he does.

Okay, I’ve got the bitter out. Now I’ll start getting ready to smile at everybody when the weekend rolls around. Oh. Good to see you. Have you lost weight? That tiara looks wonderful on you! Have you gotten a new psychotherapist? It shows, dahling.

In which we are collegiate (with no apologies to Fred Waring)

I went to the Collegiate Round Robin this weekend. Aside from a drop-off of a trophy last year, I haven’t been since it was the Vassar Round Robin. One thing I noticed right away was that it wasn’t in Poughkeepsie, which meant schlepping down by train rather than driving up by car. Honestly, I prefer the train. It’s much easier to sleep than while driving, for one thing. And my last visit to Vassar, for the MHL and Invitational last year, was sort of traumatic. The sight of all those hot dogs…

Anyhow, for those who have never been there, Collegiate, which is older than any school you can think of and apparently once had Socrates as a teacher until they sent him out once to make a coffee run and he never returned, is a real warren of a building, or actually a number of buildings. You are greeted in the cafeteria by a handwritten menu left over from Per Se down the road, offering a fine selection of entrees that don’t even come close to debate ziti, mystery meat or sloppy joes. Apparently the wine list is a bit light on Bordeaux, but you can’t have everything. Sometimes you just have to settle for a Californian cabernet. Sigh. From this one might get an idea that the place is just too too, until you read the sign on the ladies room door explaining what ladies are and why they get to use this bathroom and you don’t. Normally I don’t read the signs on the ladies room door, and I assure you I wasn’t considering availing myself of that particular facility, but sometimes you’ve got to stop and smell the roses.

I had helped Aracelis set things up on tabroom, and I was there pretty much just to hang out after that. RRs are pretty straightforward, after all. Judges were a tad tight, and tabroom couldn’t really assign them after the first couple of rounds, but it was easy enough to do manually, starting with the hardest to place and working outwards. We hit a wall at one point, but a reboot and a slice or patience seemed to do the trick. CP claimed that there was no system outage, so I guess there must have been a system outage. (Not that I don’t believe everything CP tells me…) He was out in Chicago introducing more suckers disciples to the glory that is his program. One new feature that didn’t work was a notification of when all the ballots were in, which is nifty for an all e-ballot situation, and he seemed to get that working by the end of the day. Nice. Of course, we won’t be doing e-ballots in the depths of Hell House this weekend at Yale. I was considering doing them on the campus on Friday, but going on and off and on again seemed like too much of a reach at this point in the life of tabroom. Maybe next time.

Anyhow, the tournament ended, as most do, and it was a Lake Highland closeout, so I got to take a nice walk from the upper west side down to GCT, and then a nice nap on the ride home, and a pleasant time was had by all. Aracelis managed to cop a couple of tons of leftover meat and potatoes from Saturday night, so look for barbecue sauce stains on her fingers for the next few weeks.

In which we gratuitously mention Big Bronx in passing in order to increase page views

Apple has discontinued the classic iPod. I personally have purchased about 2 CDs this year (although I will allow that one of them was a multidisc set). The idea of physically owning music media, which has been dying for a while as people migrate to mp3s, is virtually over, aside from a few diehards. I actually thought I was one of those diehards until I found that Spotify had more albums than I do. While arguments can be made against the sound quality of the average song file, my old-age hearing loss is beneficial as far as that’s concerned. Maybe there will always be people buying vinyl (I recently threw most of my old scratched-up unlistenable vinyl away—beware of needles!), there is also still a market for Edison-era cylinders. The times move, and we move with them.

Still, I’m not giving up my big ol’ iPod anytime soon, much to the dismay/comfort of my companions in tab rooms. I have gotten off the kick of going through those bazillion songs alphabetically—the loop of “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” at last year’s Big Bronx still haunts those of us who suffered through it—but I still like serendipity, so now I just go on random play of songs, and the devil take the hindmost. I’ve got some really good music on there. I’ve also got some real crap. And some stuff I can’t imagine how it got there. With luck, that little machine will last for quite a few more years. (Side note: I do have a playlist now of nothing but different versions of “Luck Be a Lady Tonight”: I call it my “Torture Palmer Till He Does Everything I Want in Tabroom” playlist and I’ve got it set for endless repeat. [Evil laugh here. Big Bronx is coming.])

I was able to scare up some slots in JVLD at the Pups, now that VLD has settled down. I feel good about that. There’s a couple of programs I’d still like to let in, but we’re getting close. The shutdown tomorrow could have an impact, although I’m not sure. Things have been so static. There’s still 99 people on the PF waitlist, for instance. Not much I can do there, due to limitations of space. Still, I wonder if a division ought to be bigger than 200. That’s a lot of people, and a lot of prospective craziness. Even if a division has the space to expand to accommodate everyone, is that a good idea? Tab management gets crazy (especially in PF, which is hard to tab no matter how you slice it, with its floating sides in every round). Division quality can’t possibly be that high throughout, which is only a problem insofar as, in a big division, if there’s not enough rounds, teams can break that ordinarily wouldn’t. (Witness CatNats.) And there’s absolutely no control of judging. I mean, random is fine, but at some point, even in PF, don’t we want judges we trust judging important rounds? Maybe not. I know there are some people still reeling from the very idea that all judges aren’t randomly assigned, much less the trend to MJP. Oh, well. It’s a complicated question.

Meanwhile, Saturday it’s on to Collegiate. I’ll pack my backpack tonight (I’m out tomorrow). I’ve already looked everywhere for my really nice debate pens, which seem to be nowhere to be found. Hmmm. It wasn’t that long ago that O’C stayed over and took all the Disney shampoo containers. I wonder if he’s been over again lately? Well, at least I'll be in the City. There's got to be pen stores around there somewhere.

In which we thank our lucky stars for our popularity during debate season

I think I do this because, when I don’t do it, I don’t get much mail. Nobody asks me questions that are answered in the invitation. No one yells at me for losing their ballots last year with a warning not to do it again, you spalpeen! Nobody wonders why they didn’t get any hired judges, even though they didn’t request any hired judges. Nobody complains how hard it is to change motel arrangements, even though I’ve had to change my own motel arrangements and all I had to do was send an email to the nice people at the Hampden Inn and they were most accommodating. Let’s face it; 50% of being a coach is being a travel agent. Speaking of which, I just made my Montwegian reservation today. Must have taken me whole minutes. Oh, the humanity.

Last night the plebes appeared, in rather goodly numbers, meaning that next week I’ll have half a goodly number which is, in this case, still a goodly number. I look for 4 or 5 to make it for the long haul. If we start with 10, that’s where we end up. That’s right for Sailordom. We didn’t pick up many Speecho-Americans, though. They’ll just have to keep on recruiting. We can’t set sail without any Sailors.

Anyhow, back to the Pups. The number of VLD has settled. What I’m looking for next is filling in some of the JVLD slots. I had switched the totals to accommodate more of the former, but now that we’re down to loose or extra entries, it’s time to see to the young ‘uns again. How many remains to be seen, since that division has barely moved a muscle since the beginning. The thing is, a lot of people look to Yale, with what is the last of the JV divisions, as an important event. But the number of rooms is the number of rooms, and it does make sense to prioritize VLD for the sake of the tournament. It’s tough, and people are going to get blocked out. Not much we can do about that.

I will be going down to Vassaregiate this weekend to provide moral support, if nothing else. I love the fact that tabroom never forgets coaches’ notes, which means that, among other things, a couple of our judges are unavailable on Friday for a tournament that starts on Saturday. As long as the notes are eternal, they are, essentially, useless. Apparently the problem is that in Massachusetts, notes are indeed eternal, and the mobs that dumped the tea into the bay would rise again and dump CP into the bay, or something, if the notes went away. As I’ve said to him about a million times, feh! Even if the reason for keeping the notes were a good one, the fact that the reason comes from Massachusetts would render it misguided. I mean, these are the people who elected Romney and Dukakis! Seriously now…

In which we mostly kick the season into gear

Things seem to be locking down at the Pups. The TBAs are gone, the judges are all sold, and there isn’t much movement except the tiniest trickle. I’m still expecting one last little splash when registrations are fixed on Friday, but the way things are going, it won’t make that much of a difference.

Saturday was the NYCFL meeting, which is like the beginning of the season without anything actually happening. It was at Iona, although Catholic Charlie has moved up to directing the entire national league, and toward the end of the meeting, when we had the annual elections, we put Tommy B in his place. This is a big change. No more Genesis. Sondheim 24/7. Wowza! Otherwise not too much to report. We did agree to remove the flip from all PF rounds, which is pretty big. This is in keeping with NCFL, of course, but honestly, as long as there’s big imbalances in resolutions, where the only advice I can give my students is to flip the side that will always win, it makes sense. We know of cases where people flip into winning trophies. We also know of cases where people never debate one of the two sides. Strategically I kind of like the flip, but it only works if all other things are equal, and I don’t think they ever will be. We’re going to institute it at the MHL, too, in aid of it being a better learning scenario.

There is lots of movement of people and programs. Kaz, of course, abandoning the Hudson River for the Mighty [there must be some river or something in Lexington]. Some speech people have moved on. There’s all sorts of calendar changes. You name it. Students of my Hen Hud calendar are advised to take a new look at it, especially for MHL/CFL stuff. We put JV into Kaz’s MHL advisory position, which makes sense. He needs something to do to fill up his empty hours, after all. Anyhow, I’ll send out a message to the MHL troops at some point soon, to provide an update.

Tomorrow night is the first meeting with the new recruits, if any. I trust the Sailors have been driving in the sheep, but one never knows until one gets there. Pray for plebes!

In which we wring our hands over bogus entries

The freebooters may be getting out of hand.

I do not feel a terribly great need to defend the idea that attendance at high school debate tournaments ought to be confined to official entries from actual high schools. This is about as radical as suggesting that attendance at high school tennis tournaments ought to be confined to official entries from actual high schools. Clubs like to claim that they’re doing all this great stuff for debate, and maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, but that’s not the point. Independent debaters like to claim that they are the stuff that dreams are made of, TOC-quality talent that the tournament needs to make it legit, but again, that’s not the point. Every event I attend is a high school event, with all the various sanctions and expectations in place, backed by and answerable to school administrations, for the benefit of the students in those schools. That’s the way that it is, and it doesn’t strike me as some horribly restrictive system that needs to be changed. Like many folks in the activity, I would like to see more debate in more places, but to me that means more debate in more schools, with recognition within those schools of the educational benefits of the activity. It does not mean more debate in unregulated and/or maverick situations outside of the basic educational context.

As I say, I feel no great need to defend this. Most people I know, from the administration of various national organizations to tournament directors to tab staff feel the same way, so this is hardly heretical. (And as for the latter, the tab staffs, given our experience with non-school entities, independent or otherwise, we have more than merely orthodoxy informing our opinions on this subject.)

I offer all this prelude to the fact that, regardless of the policies of most tournaments which restrict entry to official registrants from bona fide schools, we are now seeing what I would call a boomlet in bogus entries. People pretend to be their coach and sign up, even when their coach has specifically determined that their school will not be attending the tournament. People register under false names marginally similar to their own (in case they acquire a bid and want to claim it later). People simply register as their school slash independent, with no one at their school in fact endorsing their entry even as independents. People don’t even bother pretending to be a coach, but simply register as if they’re the school, creating a completely bogus account under the school name.

We’ve been weeding our way through these at the Pups, but they’re not alone in having this problem. I’m curious to what the warrant is for such deception/mendacity: since you’re not allowed at this tournament for one reason or another, it’s okay for you to lie your way in? This is the lesson of morality and ethics that we are teaching students today?

Jeesh.

In which we watch the season commence

Things start up pretty quickly, once they start up. All of a sudden I’m getting a million emails, about this, that and the other. I’d almost forgotten what it was like.

This morning I sent out the first of what will no doubt be regular Pups emails on this and that. The waitlist remains ridiculous, although there should be some falloff over the next week. Still, there’s no way everyone who wants to get in will. Not a good situation. Needless to say, sending an email saying there’s nothing you can do immediately brings responses from people demanding that you do something. Oh, well. We’ll clear the TBAs Friday, although honestly I don’t think it will help all that much. The whole process is more aimed at getting people to be realistic rather than a general purge. As CP says, you can always put in one name and then change it to another later. But that says that you’re really coming, as compared to thinking you might be marshaling your troops at some point. I mean, it’s in a little over two week’s time. People should have a handle on it by now.

This weekend there’s the NYCFL meeting, followed by a NYSDCA lunch. The former is the same old same old, where we argue about the rules for Congress and poke at the schedule and reelect one another and eat bagels. As for the latter, this is a good idea, an opportunity for coaches to get together without a tournament breathing down their necks to talk about whatever concerns them. The only problem is transportation from one to the other means that I’ll need to drive into Manhattan. I don’t mind that so much, but I’ve gotten used to taking the train and sleeping. You really can’t do that while you’re driving. Then again, I can make more progress on my endless audiobook pursuit of the Harry Potter titles. Ms. R does slow down a bit after the first four books.

Tonight is the last chez before moving back to the high school next week. We’ll gnaw a bit at the topics and talk about recruiting. And then the game will be afoot.

Can Bump be far behind?

In which we put DisAd14 to bed

I want to finish up this DisAd business and get back to the forensics universe.

There isn’t much to say about Animal Kingdom. We rode the rides, we saw the animals, we ate lunch in the shade. That night we stuck to the theme and went to Boma’s for dinner. Disappointingly, the cocktail lounge there no longer has its own drinks as it did last time; there had been some great ones there. Not that this stopped us, but when Disney cuts back on something unique, well, I can’t ever think that’s a good thing. Like there’s no more literal rope drop in MK, for instance, and no Mickey-hand waving on the way in. That’s small stuff, but the details are what make Disney Disney. Anyhow, as we were drinking away, Kaz returned, and our merry little band was whole again.

Friday was Hollywood Studios. Again, we did all there was to do, pretty much. O’C started out spending a lot of time going on Star Tours, which is new since our last visit, and which now mixes and matches possible experiences. He was wearing his Darth Mickey Ears, and by about the hundredth trip the ride operators were pretty much convinced that his guy was Nerd Numero Uno without a friend in the world. So when we all showed up with him later in the day, needless so say, we pretended we didn’t know him. (Not true, of course; in fact, even I stocked up on merch at Tatooine Traders.) In fact, because of the variations, the whole load of us rode ST twice, and it was indeed different. Another very nice upgrade. Another fun thing was watching the paduwan training. Little kids who could barely hold their little sabers in battle with Darth Vader. Highly entertaining and cute. Later in the day O’C got picked to be color in the Indy stunt show, which made his day on face, until he was there in the hot sun in a caftan for an hour waving his arms around; it always adds a pall to the day when they carry the extras out on a stretcher. After a longish day, Liz and I slipped out and met up with JV back at the hotel lounge. A nice glass of wine and a little salad instead of Fantasmic? Just this once, you betcha!

Saturday was our valediction, a bit of a sleep in and later start on Epcot. Liz and I tried the Behind the Seeds walking tour of The Land, a really interesting change of pace. OC and I agreed that next time (???) we’d do backstage at MK. Doing Seeds meant skipping Captain EO. Thank God! Then we did all the countries we hadn’t already done, snacking, eating, watching movies, shopping, etc., wrapping it all up with the now traditional (except next time I want to go somewhere else) dinner at Germany and, of course, Illuminations.

After the DiDeAd four years ago, it seemed as if the stars had come together just right, and that the fun would never happen again. That was not true. The stars were in whatever was the right conjunction, and the proverbial lightning did strike twice. 8 people, many but not all of them of the forensician persuasion, can come together for four days of peace and love and rock and roll—wait a minute. Wrong event. And it’s more like ten days of fun in the sun under Disney skies, provided a little planning to avoid lines and to secure good food is spent ahead of time.

In other words, as far as I could tell, a splendid time was had by all.

In which we swim, golf, eat, clog, ooh and ahh and consider assassinating the ten-year-olds who beat the crap out of us

Our second full day at WDW was a day off. Some of us went to Blizzard Beach and spent the morning flying down waterslides. Some of us went to Winter Park to look at Tiffany objects. O’C met up with friends for brunch. In other words, one does what one wants on the day off.

Blizzard Beach is fun, but like anything else, get there early before it crowds up. The 4 of us who went were only slowed down by the need to climb every mountain from which the slides commence. By noon, though, our quittin’ time, there were lines going up those mountains. By then I was navigating the lazy river portion of the experience. The others had gone on for a little more tobogganing before lazy rivering themselves.

By now, btw, Kaz had gone off to Lexington to learn how to be a teacher in her new job. Despite the fact that many of us would have offered expert testimony that this initiation was unnecessary, she was gone from Monday night to Thursday. This means she missed out on the Mini-Golf Tournament. We played at Winter/Summer Land, which is attached to Blizzard Beach. Lots of Santa and snow. After last summer’s hard fought battle in the shadow of Stuyvesant, the heat was on, but I managed to bring my record against Vaughan to one-one. We need a tiebreaker. Are there any tournaments on the circuit near to any mini-golf venues? That’s definitely a problem debate needs to solve.

That night we visited the Boardwalk and ate Greek food at the soon-to-close Cat Kora’s. It was pretty good, but not to die for. The next day was the first of two at Epcot. The new version of Test Track is a dramatic improvement over the original. You get to design your own car and that is what you are testing during the attraction. I went on with JV, who was thoroughly pissed that the two ten-year-olds sitting behind us designed a better car than we did. (Not that Joe is competitive or anything.) Then there’s a design-you-own-ride called Sum of All Thrills, sort of a hidden attraction, lots of fun. Then Space and, of course, Soarin’. After that, over to England, Japan and, for lunch, Morocco. And by now it’s way into the afternoon, and time for a nap, since the night’s entertainment was Raglan Road (Irish dinner with clog dancers), followed by Cirque de Soleil. Fantastic evening all around. Cirque is always a big crowd pleaser. The clog dancers were pretty good too, and the six of us had to tie Vaughan down to keep him from joining them, as he claims to have spent his entire youth in clog classes. Whatever.

I will point out that by now we were taking a relatively easy pace through the parks. They were no longer as crowded as they had been, plus by their nature, the parks other than MK at WDW are easier to handle. Even if there were no lines at all, I can’t imagine doing everything at MK in one day. Then again, at this point in my Disney life, I can survive skipping an attraction that I’ve already done. There’s always next time.

By the way, I've posted some pix of Universal on FB. I'll get the WDW ones up by the end of the weekend.

In which the DisAd hits MK

We kicked off at Magic Kingdom, the most Disney of the WDW parks.

The day begins early, of course. You don’t go to Orlando to sleep in. One needs to be inside the gate at 15 minutes prior to opening to watch the welcome ceremony, which puts one in the proper Disney state of mind. Then follows the all-important first hour of E tickets. The best way not to wait on long lines at any park is to hit as many E-ticket attractions as possible within the first hour. This means moving along swiftly, but it pays off in the end. By ten o’clock we had done Space, Splash and Thunder plus Under the Sea (or whatever they call it). Then we headed to Haunted Mansion, a whole 20 minute wait, and the worst of the day. After that is was mostly walk-ons, thanks to having dispensed with the biggies, or scheduled FastPasses for them later in the day.

In the new FastPass+ system, you sign up in advance, so that’s another 3 E-tix, if you play it right. It was obvious that a lot of noobs were in the parks, especially on MK day (a reported 8 out of 10 crowd, per Touringplans.com). I mean, what’s the point of a FastPass for Space Mountain at 9:00 a.m. when you can just walk right on? Or what’s the point for a FastPass for an attraction that never has much of a wait any time of the day? Successful navigation of Disney parks requires a combination of Unofficial Guide planning, time management and FastPass savvy. Regulars know all this, but irregulars don’t. One morning we had off, we went to breakfast at our hotel at around 9:00 and the place was packed. These are the people who, later in the day, will be waiting an hour for a two-minute ride. I encourage them to maintain their late-sleeping habits, at least when I’m on property.

New stuff at MK? 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, a cute and short little kiddie coaster cum dark ride, not worth waiting for, but since it’s new, the line for this was humongous (in the sun in the heat). The aforementioned Little Mermaid, a simple dark ride writ large, also cute. Some kiddie and princess stuff we didn’t do (except for O’C, who after waiting half an hour for Cinderella’s signature examined said signature with all the tools of the graphologist’s trade to assure that it was the same as the signature of Cinderella 4 years ago, even though, as I’ve repeated ad nauseum, there is no Cinderella, and if there were, it isn’t her). Tiki Room back under old management, enjoyable to any Disney nostalgic. And I think that’s about it. Otherwise it’s the same old same old that we always love. It was a long day, ending with the electrical parade and fireworks and, oh yeah, one other new thing, a son et lumiere projecting images on the Castle, which was way cool.

And so to bed, with most of us having made it through the whole day. And one important note: Part of our traveling includes knocking little kids and invalids out of the way on our way to the exit buses. Please note that my attempt to take a shortcut through the Emporium was stymied by one doofus ambling along as if he was shopping or something. Those aisles are narrow and there’s no play, unlike Main Street where there’s always an opening. This is wisdom for the ages, people!

In which we start our debate season and wonder about the Pup backlog

We interrupt this WDW reverie to report on debate stuff.

Last night was the first meeting of the returning Hendronauts. Well, four of them, anyhow. A few were AWOL, and a couple were looking at colleges. We argued a bit about LD, my feeling being that a case should show that organ procurement is a social good, and therefore a part of a just society, versus the idea that a case should define a just society in such a way that organ procurement fits in. That just seems backwards to me. Then we listened to much whining about the PF pro, which no one seems to like from Stefan B on down, although intuitively I feel there must be something there. I uncharacteristically committed to doing some research. The thing is, I always think that the debaters should be doing the research, in that it’s part of their education and, to tell you the truth, I actually already know how to research and am not looking to improve my skills in that area. Shouldn’t I be training them to research for themselves? Silly me. Of course, I know a lot of coaches who disagree with this, who cut cards and whatnot. More power to them. I just feel that it’s not my job. Next thing you know, they’ll want me to write their cases for them! That’ll be the day.

We also ran through a little exercise. Shades of Soddy: I wanted them to do “Modern Major General.” The ones who read their email were shockingly good at it. I need to raise the ante a bit. “Getting Married Today”? After that we ran through some Robert Burns. If patter doesn’t get ‘em, the Scots will.

And it turns out that there are new Nostrumians among the Sailors. Great Googly Moogly! Who knew?

Meanwhile, the Pup waitlists in PF and LD remain larger than the accepteds. If you’re a reader of this blog, I would strongly suggest that sending me an email asking me to do something about that is a waste of energy. You’re better off emailing everyone else on the list and convincing them not to come. Hell, you’re a debater. Argue them out of coming. The thing is, most people think that

• coming from a great distance
• being the best debater since the creation of the human animal
• living really close and always thinking that of all the Ivies, Yale is the best
• demanding to speak to my manager
• acting real friendly to me, buddy buddy (as if I can remember names and faces two minutes later)
• slipping me fifty bucks (well, actually one’s offered to slip me fifty bucks, so that might actually work, if anyone wants to try it)

will somehow convince me to take other people out of the tournament and put them in. Or maybe they expect me to run up and construct an extra building or two? Beats me. Hope springs eternal, however. We should get a bit of a lurch next week when we drop TBAs, but as CP points out, most people will just fill in names of some sort. Most but not all, methinks.

We'll find out soon enough.

In which the DisAd switches venues

Arriving at WDW is way different from arriving at Universal. WDW is the size of Romania, for one thing. You drive quite a bit from the moment you enter the grounds to the moment you find your hotel. And once you enter those grounds, you know you are at Disney. It just feels like Disney, from start to finish. The underlying tissue missing at Universal is at WDW in spades. And keep in mind that, while figures on an individual park are hard to find (Disney groups the parks together), each one generates about a billion dollars revenue a year. There’s 4 parks at WDW, i.e., four billion dollars. Magic Kingdom gets about 19 million visitors a year (all of whom are often on line in front of you for Space Mountain). August is not a peak period, but the parks are far from empty. So let’s say that MK generated $4 million the day we were there, spent by about 50 thousand people. One park, one day. So while one is in awe of the physical plant that services a crowd of this magnitude (roughly times 4, daily, on an average day), one still feels that sense of "Disney reassurance" that certain critics have written about. I won’t go into that now myself. I just bring all this up because, predictably, at some point the members of the DisAd looked around and said Wow and started googling facts and figures to try to get a handle on it. Even people who hate Disney from the bottom of their souls are encouraged to go and study it just in terms of management of crowds, machines, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, etc. Tis a wonder.  

We stayed at Coronado Springs, one of the moderate hotels. It’s the biggest of this category because it caters to business conferences, and at times one wished one were at one of the more intimate spots. The rooms are all the same no matter where you are, however, presumably short of the Grand High Poohbah Suite at Swan and Dolphin, and one doesn’t spend a lot of time in one’s room wondering what to do to pass the time, so ultimately it doesn’t matter much. The first thing most of us did on arrival was hit the quiet pool near our room, something repeated for the rest of the week at every likely possibility. When it’s almost a hundred degrees out, a dip in the pool is just the thing, even if the water is hotter than your shower that morning. Wet is wet.

Our inaugural WDW dinner was at California Grill, at the top of the Contemporary Hotel. This is a classy joint with a view of the MK to die for (and to stay for, if you want to watch the fireworks). Because we were celebrating about a hundred events, including an anniversary and a (belated) honeymoon, they decorated our table with little Mickey tinsel. Jason, our waiter, was memorable, and we went so far as to get our picture with him. The wine flowed like wine, the food flowed like food, and the main portion of the trip was underway. And so to bed early, for a c of d start the next morning.

In which we begin debriefing DisAd14

So first I guess we need to get the DisAd out of the way.

We arrived from the four corners of the earth (i.e., New York) on a Friday and met up at the pool of our hotel at Universal. To put it simply, it was hotter than Hades, and remained that way for the duration. Occasionally the skies opened up and the winds howled and you were reminded of India during the height of monsoon season, but mostly it was just hot and humid. To expect otherwise of Florida in August would be sort of, I don’t know, Polyanna-esque? Anyhow, after swimming off the muck of air travel, we moseyed on over to Emeril’s for our welcome dinner. It was much better grub than you might expect, and we were primed and loaded for the next day.

Staying on property at Universal gives you two things: access to the Harry Potter attractions an hour before the park opens to the riff and the raff, and line-passing for all the other attractions for the duration. This meant getting up at the c of d on Saturday, but the payoff would be not waiting two or three hours for the HP rides. Definitely worth it. Of course, on our way in Saturday, three of our hearty troupe got separated, confusing Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley (some people just aren’t up on their Pottering), but a quick trip on the Hogwarts Express solved that one. The main agenda was Diagon Alley and the Gringotts attraction, and in a word, it’s amazing. You walk through the bricks and there you are. And the ride was by far one of the best around. After that, we (logically) rambled over to track 9 3/4 and rode the HE over to Hogsmeade. A few of us rode the dragon coasters. Fewer of us rode and rerode them. Then we looked at the line for Hogwarts and it wasn’t that long, so we staggered over there on legs still loosey goosey from the dragons, with the words of Sheryl K ringing in our ears that it was not much more than Soarin’ in its kindness and gentleness. It’s a great ride and all, but by the time it was over, at least Vaughan and I were reeling like drunken sailors on day three of shore leave. Apparently as the ride vehicle (so to speak) comes around after the passengers have disembarked, there’s a team with power hoses washing off the vomit, a tiny fact Kaz somehow overlooked. After digesting her review of Hurlwarts, more than a few of us vowed never to believe a word she said ever again. We also vowed next time not to ride the dragons first (or maybe at all). By the time we scraped ourselves off the pavement to line up for butterbeer, Kaz, who was with the wandering group, reappeared, and we beat the crap out of her with broomsticks. Butterbeer, by the way, is very sweet and probably best taken as an ice cream flavor. Somewhere in all of this I bought myself a Slytherin cap, but the maid at the Disney World hotel stole it—which makes cosmic sense to me—so you won’t see me wearing it at tournaments any time soon.

After filling up on HP, we did various other Islands of Adventures things, reminding ourselves that Spiderman remains one of the great dark rides. Having gotten soaked on Jurassic Park, we found some lunch and moseyed back to the hotel for a break just as the monsoon du jour started. A short nap later we were back at the other side, doing all the rest of the rides and whatever. Having gotten all of HP out of the way, we didn’t need to get up so early the next day, which was nice, and all in all, we did Universal efficiently and to the proper extent. There was a lot of fun stuff. Despicable Me and Shrek were cute. The Mummy was so good we did it twice. The Simpsons Ride was up there on the Gringotts/Spiderman level, and it’s hilarious from the moment you get into the line. If Back to the Future had to go, at least it went here. The new Transformers ride had a narrative that was completely incoherent, making it A) predictably Michael Bay, and B) a pale imitation of Spiderman. Oh, well.

Overall, with the exception of the HP areas, the theming of which is astounding, Universal remains a place with a lot of fun attractions, but no underlying tissue holding it together. I would recommend anyone interested in going to do what we did. Stay on property for the benefits of early and/or line-free access, in which case you’ll be able to wrap it up in a day and a half, as we did. It was a perfect start for the trip, and mid-afternoon on Sunday we packed up and headed over to WDW.

In which we explain the Modest Novice (somewhere else)

I wrote up a history of the Modest Novice and posted it over at NDCA. My work here is done.

In which we test the app

I thought I'd load the app for potential live blogging of the DisAd. I'll add a picture.

In which we tell you to go elsewhere

Last night CP, OC and I chewed the rag on the issue of overbooked registrations. Listen all about it here.

Speaking of rags, before the show we ragged on everyone we could think of in the debate community, just to get warmed up. If you have nothing good to say about people, you might want to join us for one of these sessions in the future.

In which movement is slight, and the weather prediction is, for lack of a better word, predictable

I check in on the Pups waitlist every day, and there’s literally no movement. I sent out a begging message to people to get honest and move out if they’re not taking their allotted slots, but I might as well have sent out a message offering free pokes in the eye with a sharp stick.

Tonight I’ll chat up CP and O’C on the whole waitlist issue. I wanted them particularly because CP invented the software that manages it, and O’C has enough waitlisted entries of his own to populate another couple of tournaments entirely. Yes, there will be attrition, but still… We’ll go over what people said on the NDCA site. We ought to be able to wrest a plan out of that.

Meanwhile, the assembled DisAd14 multitude is champing at the bit. At least I’m champing at the bit. I acquired a new camera for the journey, one of those small DSLRs that weigh about half as much as a regular DSLR. I broke it in over the weekend. I’m still learning the ins and outs of it, but the pictures look great and, in a shocking development, I can report that it is much easier to lug around something that weighs half as much as you’re used to lugging around. It’s really not a noticeable burden anymore, and that’s with an extra lens in the backpack. Although I’m thinking that the longer zoom may be the better normal lens, all things considered. It’s 40 on the bottom, which plays out, I think, a little bigger than 40 used to be on a camera (don’t ask why I think that—it’s technical, and I learned it on the street from the other kids, and look how badly they screwed up the birds and the bees for me). In any case, my experience makes me wonder if I would be happy just leaving it on most of the time. We’ll see. The DisAd should give it the workout it needs. Key for me is the ability to shoot with a polarizing filter. Blue skies, nothing but blue skies!

Okay, I just looked at the extended weather forecast for Orlando. In the 90s every day with a likelihood of t-storms. In Florida in the summer? Whoda thunkit?

In which we further ponder waitlists as big as the Ritz

I keep getting people telling me they shouldn’t be on the waitlist, and I’ve been finding that agreeing with them is the best policy, and then I refer them to the NDCA blog post. Not that there’s answers there (although there may be) so much as at least there’s understanding. And I do want to solve this, because I’m going to have to go through it all again for the Tiggers.

An underlying problem with most of the proposed solutions is that they’re onerous. They force the tournament do take difficult measures. And they punish the registrants. Severe entry limits? Well, you get more schools, but is that what you really want, especially at the expense of your longtime stalwart supporters, the schools that have been there year after year with an army or two? Fines or early fees? As CP points out, TBAs are for convenience. Making people put in real names, which really aren’t real, is just punishment for being realistic. Which also means not eliminating TBAs altogether, as well as charging for them way early.

The thing is, the idea that you have to sign up at a certain moment, and that’s your warrant for priority, while seemingly fair, is rather punishing. The coach of one of your favorite programs gets called away for a minute, and is thus too late to get in any team members? It looks to me like a lot of programs assign registration to some kid, poised at the computer as if they’re trying to cop tickets to a hot concert. I mean, really. It’s come to that? The arbitrary nature of first come, first served may have as its only virtue its arbitrariness; it's not a great measure of whether a team is tournament-worthy.

Obviously this is a problem only with certain tournaments, and I’ve heard from folks who say they would kill to have this problem, but in fact, those certain tournaments tend to have national draws, making them everyone’s problem. (And no, you don’t want to be in our position, because I assure you that you have neither the time nor the inclination to answer all the emails, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction.)

I’m going to be mulling this over for a while. I’ll probably throw together the next podcast on this subject.

In which we rant about registration procedures

But we do it over at the NDCA site: http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/we-need-to-fix-registration-procedures If you're going to comment, do it there.

In which we manage the Pups

Talk about your flurries of activity.

The Pups opened on Friday. It was all waitlist, mostly because we want to be able to manage things a little bit, especially to allow people who need to fly in to have time to make arrangements. I’ve learned over the years that for some people, being on the waitlist and therefore not guaranteed a slot is not fair reason to be hesitant about buying a non-refundable plane ticket. I’ve also had people on waitlists tell me they have a ticket and that therefore they should be taken off the waitlists. I’ve had those people be ones who registered two weeks after a tournament opened.

I have learned from all of this.

On Saturday and Sunday JV and I cleared the waitlists. The thing is, there were up to three times as many registrants as there is capacity in some of the events. Holy Pup Moly! Big Jake also seemed to have very high numbers this year. Is there something in the water we don’t know about? With the Ivies, of course, it includes a lot of people just wanting to visit the school. Even when some of these venues were, shall we say, stinkers, people were still breaking down the doors. With Jake, though, it’s pure desire for $ircuit debate, or at least mostly that desire. It’s not exactly a vacation in Manhattan, despite its official name. The tournament is in the Bronx, and you’re probably staying at a motel in the world famous town of Elmsford. Not exactly bright lights, big city.

Anyhow, the Pups strategy was, first, clear off the far-aways, then hit the rest first-come, first-served. When we were done, I sent out a message to one and all, which immediately generated the predictable when am I going to get off the list questions. Given the numbers we’re talking about, e.g., 200 capacity in PF and 227 on the waitlist after hitting that capacity, I can honestly say that I haven't a bloody clue. Unless you’re, say, next on the list, how can I possibly tell? Although CP says he has some new metrics built into tabroom to track registration dwindle. I’ll be curious about that. Nevertheless, the old mail box was quite full, reminding me of what the season actually looks like once it begins. I had forgotten.

I also dickered a bit with CP over the removal of TBAs. He maintains, I think correctly, that people just put in phony names if you call them on their unassigned slots. But I think that those people are the ones who are really coming. A name change or two won’t hurt anybody. But at the very least, TBAs still on the waitlist disappear when you press the button to do so in tabroom. It makes the lot of the waitlist manager that much easier. In any case, we’ll eliminate them the first week of September. Poof!

And in other news entirely, I was forced today to throw away one of my Disney souvenir tee shirts. The shoddy piece of crap was falling apart. Jeesh! It had the 20th anniversary logo on it, meaning that I had bought it in 1991. I provide this to you as a warning: if you’re buying Disney wearable merchandise, don’t expect it to be around after 23 years or so. The stuff just doesn’t last.

In which we yammer

I'll just point you over to NDCA for my conversation with Adam Torson about the 2014-15 rezzes. Mostly we agreed. And mostly, they're good resolutions. http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/our-first-podcast

I wanted a couple more folks, but they didn't make it for whatever reason. Next time maybe we will get more voices. I'm not sure yet what to talk about, though. I'm sure something will come to me.

In which, without regret, we go to bed early

O’C chastised me for not registering for his tournament at midnight. Like that’s ever going to happen. A thousand people signed up, he says, in two minutes, or something like that. I’m sure they did. It’s a great and popular tournament. It’s curious, though, that the vast majority of the entrants have the same initials: TBA. Hmmmm…

I got the raw file from Adam for the NDCA podcast, and assembled the show last night. Aside from my Darth Vader breathing, it sounds fine. (Note to self: move microphone up a little bit up from the pie hole next time.) I’m still debating how to work it for final presentation. I could create a second blog page on the NDCA site just for podcasts, but I’m thinking that one is enough, and I’ll just list it on the designated podcast page and solicit comments via the blog. I also have to get it onto iTunes, which I trust is the same process as the good old days when I did Nostrum and TVFT. And finally, at the moment it has no intro, and I probably should throw something together. I should have all this done by the end of the day, the good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Full of inspiration from the Nat Soc Dark Arts, O’C is getting local coaches together for a season-opening lunch. That’s a good idea. Once we start doing tournaments, people are busy, well, doing the tournament. Time set aside to talk and plan will never hurt.

Anyhow, I have now registered for Jake, but am on the waitlist. Oh, the humanity. (Oh, the admin rights on tabroom—so much for humanity.) I’ve also registered for the Pups. The latter is real, because of the hotel room situation. Jake is more guess and golly, especially on the Speecho-American side. Ever try to get a Speecho-American to register for something two and a half months in advance? I did get one S-A who single-entered for Dec, which is admirably proactive on her part, aside from the fact that the tournament doesn’t offer Dec. Oh, well. That’s why the school hands out cattle prods to all the team coaches.

In which we're back, at least for a little while

Yeah, I haven’t posted in ages, and maybe longer. And since I’ll be on vacation soon, I won’t be posting again for ages, but if I don’t start to push myself in the right direction, I may never start up again. And let’s face it: the season is upon us.

Last night I worked with Adam Torson on a podcast. I should be able to mix it tonight and put it out tomorrow. We go over the proposed LD resolutions. I had wanted a couple of other folks to join us, but they bowed out for one reason or another. No problem. I’ll get them next time. The thing is, doing the podcast does require a modicum of tech skills on their part, since just recording Skype has been problematic (although I’m thinking it may be because I’m using the Mac Mini, and if I go back to the MacBook it may work better; we’ll see). So you can’t just grab someone at the last minute if they’re not prepped. I do want to get this out before the voting begins. And it will be under the auspices of the NDCA rather than TVFT.

See. I have been doing something.

Yale opens tomorrow morning, and everything looks set. I’ve even got some Sailors signed up. The Pups have a disclaimer they’re asking people to sign, which is a little problematic. More on that as things develop.

Jake opens tonight with the traditional “We Stayed Up for the Midnight Show and All We Got Was Jar Jar Binks” opening. I’ve tried to talk O’C out of it but he says it’s now a tradition, which is his blanket explanation for anything that a normal person (i.e., me, as compared to him) thinks is nuts. Whatever. You try to talk him out of it. I give up.

And for those following at home, the DisAd is now a mere two weeks away. Although a bunch of the DAs have been out frolicking in Vegas with the Nat Soc of the Dark Arts, so for them, it’s already vacation. Me, I’m working up a storm at home. Someone’s got to do some work around here.

In which, having nothing good to say, we become slightly rude

I’m trying to get Bietz and Palmer together for a podcast discussion or two on the next batch of LD rezzes. Probably next week. And we’ll see if we can do it in such a way that others can join in. Easier said than done, since I tried this last time and got nowhere, but we’ll keep at it.

Slowly but surely I’m getting a handle on the new DJ responsibilities, and the pressure is lightening a little. I’m able to eat lunch again, for instance, without working at the same time. I’m still finding lots of online articles of debate to share, but I’ve been shooting them all over to the NDCA twitter account. Which means I’ll shut down the virtual magazines next time I have a free minute. They were fun to do, but there’s really no time for them anymore. If I find a non-debate link that I just have to share, I’ll toss it into Fb, which more and more becomes people throwing in links they think they just have to share. The VCA knows I’ve never been all that addicted to Fb, unlike some people who, if you post the slightest thing, comment on it or like it before you’ve even removed your fingers from the keys. I don’t get it. Nobody on there is saying anything all that interesting.

This weekend we’re going with O’C to Mallios’s restaurant in NYC. Mallios is ex-Bronx, alum and coach both, and his place is apparently quite the spot. It’s the first time for me. I have to admit, I like it when a Bronx person goes on and succeeds. It so rarely happens… Not since Bobby Darin, really. Although there are those who might dispute me on this. (Some people just never liked Bobby Darin.)

In which we rev our engines

I’m breaking in a new P&L at the DJ. That’s always fun. The best parts are: 1) convincing the money people that the creative people (so-called) can trouble their pretty little heads enough to fill in a simple spreadsheet, and 2) designing a simple spreadsheet that actually can be read and understood at a glance that isn’t filled with abbreviations for things that used to be the standard phrase that we don’t use anymore. This sort of thing does keep one's head in the game.

Drawing close to August 1 means polishing tabroom files left and right. I got a room list from the Pups yesterday; they’ve got enough space to host the Summer Olympics, if they get in the mood. Having access to multiple big high schools in the area doesn’t hurt. I might have mentioned that this year LD is back at Hell House, with Friday on campus, which is my preferred combination. If we had been at The Other Place, I would have had to change the geography a bit, to insure that tab, the ballot table and the judges’ lounge were all right next to one another. The further from tab the judges get, the harder it is to find stragglers. One thing that’s the same in both places is the lack of civilization anywhere nearby. If you’re doing debate in any way, shape or form at one of these schools, you’ve got nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. And I'm assuming once again that there will be no wireless, so you don’t even have Netflix. In other words, go to your rounds!

O’C has gotten Rather Large Northern Borough Roman Numeral Something or Other started on tabroom too. What he’s got that nobody else really has is judges up the proverbial wazoo, which means that certain normal ways of handling hires and whatnot are rendered moot. And of course, he has the Jar Jar Midnight Madness Registration, although I think he set it for the wrong midnight. Oh, great. The teeming millions all get their s’mores ingredients and their bonfires and their single malts ready (okay, the kids at the camps probably don’t do the single malts) and it turns out that the tournament opened a day early and it’s filled up already with Brazilian ex-soccer players too embarrassed to show their faces in their home country so all you get for staying up late is a waitlist notice and that bitter memory of Phantom Menace.

All of this means I need to attack Bump in the near future. Feh. Anyone wanna buy a used tournament?

In which mostly we tell you to go somewhere else

I can't recall if I ever posted these numbers here, although I might have. But I wanted the wider distribution of the NDCA, so I just posted it there: http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/some-interesting-statistics-on-mjp-in-ld The real issue, following this, is whether to fiat 1-2s and/or 2-3s over 3-3s or less, or solicit choices, or what-have-you. That will be the next order of business.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get Bietz and CP on board for a discussion of the next batch of LD topics, with an eye on turning the podcast into a broadcast. I failed miserably at it last time, but beaten though I am, I remained unbowed (or vice versa). The best conversations will come when they're open to all. Easier said than done, maybe, but we're working on it.

I spent a lot of time over the weekend updating the calendar, and most things have found their time and place. The Pups is heating up, seeing that registration opens in 2 weeks. Theoretically Big Jake should also be heating up, seeing that registration opens at midnight in the traditional Jar Jar Binks "if we're waiting on line at this ridiculous hour it must be good" approach. Whatever. O'C tells me that debate camps around the country have parties to celebrate the start of Jake registration. Which indicates to me that debate camps around the country would have parties for anything under the sun, including throwing one every time an ant crosses the pavement. I really do think, by the way, that since every other aspect of Jake is named after someone or something, the registration should be named after Jar Jar. It just seems so...right.

In which we update on the state of our calendar

So all I said was that we needed to fix up next year’s schedule, and there was a flurry of what I’d pretty much call total unresolved confusion, and the one thing I can categorically claim at this moment is that next year’s schedule is, in a word, unfixed up.

First, there’s the MHL Workshop. The choices are problematic, either too early and competing against Georgetown, which I didn’t even know was a conflict and all of a sudden the northeast is breaking down its doors, or on Yom Kippur, which is a pretty obvious conflict: Georgetown, I don’t know from; God, I have a clue or two. Which leaves a Sunday, Oct 5, as the most likely day. I polled the teeming millions, and got a fairly supportive response for the Sunday date, although mostly the responses ranged from meh to whatever.

And of course there’s the usual question of which comes first, the MHL or CFL in October. We asked EDM, but of course he was sipping champagne and eating bonbons on a high speed train across the Iberian peninsula, and told us he’d get back to us if he ever returned to New York, which if I were him, I wouldn’t even consider.

Then there was the question of whether Newark was definitely changing its date. I buzzed Jonathan and he confirmed it, so now we head off to Jersey the week before Lexington, leaving the week before Scarsdale open. We were going to put a big open UDL into what was the open weekend in January, and everybody loved that, but I’m not sure how they all loved it when I told them not so fast, not so fast, and we switched it. All right, fine. I’m penciling in the UDL the weekend before Scarsdale, and I’ll go whether they have it or not.

Then there’s March. I think what we’ve done is set the CFL Grands for the weekend of the 7th and NYSDCA for the weekend of the 14th, although various heads of debate state have yet to chime in with confirmations. Still, I’ll pencil it in. This leaves the NYS National Society of the Dark Arts district tournament and the NYSFL regional tournament up in the air, but they are small items that can’t really command a weekend of their own, things being what they are.

The moral of this story is, don’t buy any plane tickets for any of the local tournaments in New York that you weren’t going to come to anyhow.

In which we point out how the DisAd will transpire

We have established some guidelines for DisAd14, which begins in exactly 6 weeks.

First of all, everyone must go on “it’s a small world.” If we have to, we’ll strap people to the mast of the boat, Odysseus-style. And we will not allow Kate to arm herself with a slingshot.

We will not be hiring a wheelchair-bound person to get front-of-the-line access to the attractions. Apparently the Disney organization is now wise to this ruse, and only lets wheelchair-bound people do “it’s a small world” and the Hall of the Presidents. (Then again, if O’C decides not to come, maybe I’ll give Abhi a call, just to sound him out on things.)

We will not tweet every time a certain person on the trip squeals like a 12-year-old girl. We can’t afford the extra data charges.

We will make no snide comments when O’C goes off to get Cinderella’s autograph. Again. (Well, let’s be realistic: we will make no more than five minutes of snide comments, promise.)

JV will not swear once in the presence of a poor innocent child. (He will swear multiple times.)

Seriously, members of the DisAd will be allowed to wander off at will, despite the fact that I have planned out every single second of the trip from the moment of arrival, including potty breaks, catnaps, snacks, sips of water (not so many that they incur extra potty breaks), eye-rolling, mad dashes through the crowds at the end of the day to get on the buses first honed through years of speed-walking through tourist-thronged Manhattan streets, etc.

If anyone falls behind my schedule, we will abandon them without a qualm. This is war, people. Bloody feet don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

Speaking of which, with any luck the mini-golf game of me, JV, Kt and Richard will not result in bloodshed. Or at least too much bloodshed. However, it will no doubt be the most serious segment of the trip. This is not a foursome that wishes the other player well. (“Your ball went into the ditch and was carried away by red ants and dropped in front of that rattlesnake? Well, the rules say, play it as it lies. Here, have a tourniquet.”)

We will not lie and say things like, no, that elevator in the Tower of Terror is just decorative, all you do is walk around the hotel and look at the dust and then come out the back. People are still complaining that at the DiDeAd we failed to mention anything about a certain Everest descent going backwards...

We will not wait for an hour in Diagon Alley for the Gringotts ride and then whine that we preferred it back in the olden days when it was the Jaws ride.

If certain members of the DisAd decide to drink their way across the world at Epcot, we will not discourage them, especially if they’ve beaten us at minigolf earlier in the week and we think we can trick them into playing again, this time completely intoxicated, for double or nothing.

We will not complain that we’re getting up every morning at the crack of dawn. This is a vacation, people. If you want to relax, go back to work.

In which we thank God we're not members of the National Society for the Dark Arts (yet)

Great googly moogly!

TOPIC AREA: Sports in the United States

Choice 1 – Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.

Choice 2 – Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities.

You know, I haven’t posted a lot lately, being all tied up in the new DJ, but sometimes I realize, I really don’t have to post. After all, you know as well as I do what I’m going to say about these choices for Sept-Oct PF. I barely even have to think it. The only way Choice 1 will ever win the vote is if all the voters are non-PF people who want to punish this upstart division for some perceived sins or other that I can’t imagine. Which means Choice 2 is a shoo-in so that we can discuss…what…exactly? Presumably that pro sports already has enough money and doesn’t need the subsidies. Which is a pretty weak argument against the needs of most local communities to get the income derived from any corporate investment. The thing is, there’s no question that either these are a good idea or a bad idea, because the evidence, once one bothers to look it up, is highly unlikely not to go solidly one way or the other (and, as should be clear, I’m guessing in favor of benefits to the community, but whichever it is, that’s what it is). The facts will be what they are, and once the question of the financial benefit is established, in most civilized societies the discussion would be over. Then again, most civilized societies don't engage in Grand Crossfire. I say we just argue against sports, period. Anything that gives us Dennis Rodman, Luis Suarez and Tonya Harding should be ridden out of town on a rail, obviously.

Sigh.

I can’t wait until Oct 1, when the November topic is announced. I mean, how bad can it be?

In which we feel, shall we say, a sort of longing

I was talking to CP and telling him that I felt kind of bittersweet watching NatNats from afar. It overwhelmed Twitter, if nothing else. The thing is, no matter how you slice it, NatNats is not for us. It conflicts with mandated exams and, for seniors, graduation and/or proms. Over the years I’ve qualified a bunch of people who’ve immediately backed out, and more often than not been unable to get people interested in the first place, given the hoops they have to jump through. (Not to mention that, for me, it’s fairly impossible to attend, as I don’t have the time off from the DJ, but that’s a personal issue that can be gotten around.) And of course, the Sailor situation is little different from everyone else around here. So I get this warm glow of a feeling emanating out of Kansas City of “The Best in the Nation” and so forth and so on, and not to take away anything from anyone who was there, but New York is not necessarily going to be able to send its best every year, or at least not all of its best. And with the school calendars being about the same for the entire northeast, nor is anyone else around here. In my eyes, it’s the Best in the Nation, but with an implied asterisk.

I would like to have a valedictory event like this one that we could attend. My brief against the organization was not anything that it did (aside from its heinous fees when I personally didn’t attend), nor even suggesting that it try to accommodate our small portion of its membership, but merely that they never acknowledged our reality. To them, it was as if we were deliberately trying to be non-participatory. Which is why I ultimately gave up. The thing is, when you have a menu of national events to choose from, including national finals, you choose the one(s) that make sense to your situation. This one never has, and probably never will. And, as I say, I miss that particular opportunity. I miss sharing in that warm glow.

So it goes.

Now everyone is toddling off to camps (although, yes, our school is still in session). Which makes me wonder, sometimes. How many camps are there, anyhow? How many people go? Are these $ircuit-specific businesses? Or does the vast majority of the teaming millions of forensicians attend one or the other? I have no idea, although I’ve always supposed that for the most part it’s for circuit hopefuls. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I wonder if everyone I know is just too circuity for me, given my marginal interest in traveling far and wide just for a high school debate tournament. I mean, at the point where you have to get on an airplane, I begin to wonder if we’re not overdoing it just a wee tiny bit (except for big national finals, which is a different thing altogether). But the VCA knows well my thoughts on all of this, which haven’t changed in ages. There’s probably no point in continuing to harp on it. There’s worse things than selling your soul to debate. I’ve just always thought that there were also better things.

In which we briefly respond to the proposed LD resolutions

I’ve managed to acquire some new responsibilities at the DJ, and my brain has been a little bit occupied learning what I need to learn from the folks who provide the money every week. Good timing, when you think about it. I’d hate this to be happening, say, the week of Bump. It’s all good, in any case, and removes from my mind the idea that they’re all behind closed doors plotting how to get rid of me before the end of the week. I won’t regress to that one for at least another month or two.

For those who didn’t see them, here’s a working list of the LD rezzes. These aren’t final; NSDA was soliciting opinions. They may have all the opinions they need at this point. I certainly know how I feel about these off the top of my head, but as I move into PF almost exclusively, my interest is academic at best. Still, a few brief comments.


In the United States, K-12 education ought to be compulsory for minors. Hmmm. Should we argue that New Hampshire needs to provide kindergarten? Silly topic.

The United States federal government ought to define common K-12 educational standards. Hot button in its way, although I wonder about its durability. Better in PF.

The United States federal government ought to defer to states’ marijuana laws. States’ rights in 2014 is awfully inside baseball, if you ask me.

The “right to be forgotten” from internet searches ought to be a civil right. Minor interest at best. PF might make a go of something like this.

The First Amendment’s protection of political speech ought to extend to financial contributions. Probably okay.

Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens. Either really interesting or totally deadly.

Nuclear power is a just means of energy production. Just? Not very exciting, in any case.

A just government ought to require that employers pay a living wage. I actually like this one, if it’s about the responsibilities of government past the old social contract ideas of rights.

Sin taxes are just. Probably okay, but term of art though sin tax may be, I’d prefer sumptuary.

In the United States patents ought not be granted for biological substances. Something tells me that the bad science being tossed around on this one will cause brains to explode. And aren’t some medications biological substances? Meaning removing patents on drugs? Way off the mark. I'm a big fan of discussing IP issues, but not this one.

Historic preservation is a legitimate constraint on property rights. Too narrow.

United States foreign policy ought to value women’s rights over the pursuit of its economic interests when the two conflict. Yeah, that’ll make for interesting arguments.

The United States criminal justice system’s exclusionary rule is just. Pretty good.

In the United States, collective bargaining ought to be a civil right. I don’t like this one at all, on a gut level.

Corporations ought to value their responsibility to society over the conflicting responsibility to their shareholders. Meh.

Justice requires reparations to African Americans. Let fly the dogs of war. This is a great subject area, and we can argue important issues of discrimination that will actually be resolutional!

Inaction in the face of injustice makes an individual morally culpable. One of those perfect Nationals topics.

Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices. I don’t see it.

In the United States, Supreme Court justices should be subject to term limits. Interesting.

They will narrow this down, and maybe change some wording, and then there will be voting. Once again, a fine starting point. It will be up to the members at large to screw it up and vote for the wrong ones.

BREAKING NEWS: They did it.

1. The "right to be forgotten" from internet searches ought to be a civil right.
2. Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens.
3. Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.
4. Sin taxes are just.
5. Historic preservation is a legitimate constraint on property rights.
6. United States foreign policy ought to value women’s rights over the pursuit of its economic interests when the two conflict.
7. Justice requires reparations to Black Americans.
8. Inaction in the face of injustice makes an individual morally culpable.
9. Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States should be subject to term limits.
10. Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.

Compared to my analysis, I'd say we got the usual lineup of a good group of interesting ones, a couple that could go either way, and one outright stinker (adolescent medical choices). I'll go into detail shortly (and for all I know, I might think differently about things after I've thought about them more in depth).

In which we look at NatNats from afar

One of the regular features of not going to a national tournament is watching everyone report on Facebook how they’re having trouble getting to the national tournament. They should add a Schadenfreude button next to the Like button: I mean, it’s not that I want to see people’s flights cancelled or whatever, but when it happens, I get to savor that it isn’t me, as does everyone else whom it isn’t. Given my own debate flight history lately—a couple of NDCA trips going off the tracks one way or the other, thanks to the proximity of the Bronx team—I’ve been there with them in fact, as well as in spirit, so I know the pain. But I prefer someone else to be suffering it.

For a lot of people NatNats really is a culmination, but I still see it primarily as a Midwest speech event more than anything else. After all those frustrating years of arguing with them about the inability of the northeast to put together much of an entry, there was no love lost between us. Even though there are schools around the region who manage to put together good entries, they are still hamstrung by the undeniable fact of mandated exams, proms and graduations. So it goes, of course, and given that the dates of the event are pretty much set in stone, my desire was that some accommodation be made for our conflicts, but none were forthcoming. Even the final resolution, removing the stigma of Red Light District, was restrictive, limiting the numbers of qualifiers for purposes of following inviolable albeit arbitrary rules rather than looking at situation of the students themselves. Sigh.

Oh, well. Sour grapes on my part, and old news, and since I’ll be re-upping next season, I should put a lid on it. But my main point stands, that NatNats is a tournament with little personal relevancy for me. Given that you can only get yourself worked up for just so many national events, one needs to pick among them. I tell our Speecho-Americans that they’re working toward CatNats, a very big deal that is also well within their grasp. They are as able to qualify as anyone else, and they’ll get to go because it doesn’t conflict with anything like, say, their graduation ceremony. As for debaters, I’m obviously leaning toward NDCA as being the end-all be-all, especially after this year’s TOC fiasco. Unfortunately a lot of people are still locked into the TOC route, and I would be hard-pressed not to bring kids who qualify. But I’d rather not. I think the mechanisms for determining qualifications are problematic at best, the lack of neutral judging is inexcusable, and when you get down to it, the only reason the event has the power it has is because the community deliberately invests it with that power. Interestingly, the policy community has drifted a lot to NDCA, but LD and PF haven’t. Given the quality of the competitors in elims in those divisions, it’s hard to figure out why. Anyhow, I’ll certainly be pushing Sailors to NDCA as their culmination, and billing it as such, with TOC merely a diversion. After all, the choice the next couple of years is Las Vegas vs. Lexington, then Orlando vs. Lexington. And we’re talking about me, here.

No contest.

In which we provide the punchline here to help you out: "Mr. Schwartzkopf."

I just got two pieces of junk mail, the first with the subject line Anti-Aging, and the second with the subject line Burial Insurance. Tough choice which one to open first.

Also Feedly is down, suffering a DDoS attack. Sigh. RSS is my lifeblood, or at least it’s the blood I chew on (that doesn’t sound right) when I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, like working. And work is sucky because I have not read anything usable all week, which is very frustrating. At least one of the books was good, just not for us. Not that I can spend much time with such an animal, but it does help a little. Add to this that today was the second of three in a series of root canal sessions, and you’ve pretty much got my life in a nutshell.

I went to the school yesterday because of some new finance system everyone has to learn, and in a shocker of shockers, it turns out that 95% of the whole thing is irrelevant. We will have to handle candy table sales differently in the future, though, I think, because the school has to pay sales tax to the state. Yeah, I know. There may be a loophole, if we only sell certain things. I’ll see. Anyhow, the people running the meeting were imports from some company that has nothing to do with the Sailors specifically, so when I talked to them about what I do, they looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars. Which, being in Speech and Debate, is a look I have long ago gotten used to. I did get the chance to catch up with Kathy S, our speech coach. Neither of us is sanguine about getting access to the Middle School for recruiting purposes in the next couple of last school weeks, but that’s par for the course. And kids who have joined the team over the years regularly report that, if there was MS recruiting, it was never the reason they had showed up. So though one wants it, one can live without it.

For those who were wondering, the Lexwegian job comes with the Palmer curse. This is good news, of course. He clarified it on FB. And if you don’t know what I mean by the Palmer curse, remind me not to swap old jokes with you any time soon.

I ran into my Nostrum fan at Jake on Saturday, by the way. There may be more than just the one, but he’s the only one I’m aware of at the moment. For those who are wondering, other than him, that is, I’m up to about 120 of the 170 or so in Series 1. I’m still targeting September, although admittedly, I need to get on the stick a little bit. The thing is, when I read an episode that depends entirely on, say, the vagaries of dial-up, I get distracted by, first, how old all this stuff is, and second, how it doesn’t really seem all that long ago. Last night I heard some techies prognosticating that 5 years from now we won’t recognize today, tech-wise. Probably true. 15 years ago? We had barely emerged from the primordial tech ooze.

In which another one bites the dust

Sara Sanchez is leaving Lexington for Chicago. I understand she’s doing it to get away from the cold Massachusetts winters. I think perhaps she misread the Glenbrooks job description…

There always seems to be one big change every season. While some programs’ personnel seem to have a barnacle’s ability to hang on no matter what, other programs have new faces practically every year. Lexington, actually, has been one of the busier venues for whatever reason. Given that I trundle up there twice a year, the old fingers are crossed that they’ll acquire another good egg for the spot.

There will probably be other changes among the local dramatis personae, but nothing as big as this one. Of course, in a way I’m used to a rotating cast, given all the colleges I work at. I have to admit there is great joy in seeing repeat faces at any of these, because it’s usually someone who has earned their stripes the previous year who can help guide the present leadership. The idea that colleges put their sophomores in direct charge at their invitationals is a very good one. They may be rookies, but they’ve got a deep bench behind them.

In my scouring of the universe for NDCA tweets, I’ve been inundated with NSDA reminders. Apparently they’re having a shindig of some sort next week. Good old NatNats. I really should go someday, just because. Otherwise it’s like being a cardinal who refuses to visit the Vatican. Then again, I’m more of a defrocked cardinal, or more accurately a self-defrocked cardinal. And I hate to admit it, but I’ll most certainly be refrocking next season. The argument that it’s good for students to have lots of points on their CV for college is a winning one. Add to that the fact that tabroom will be subsumed by the evil empire organization, and I don’t want to be sidelined there. Oh, well. I made my point, back in the day. I wonder if I’m up for another diamond or something?

In which we dabble in various arcana debatia

Saturday Bronx Science held a memorial for Richard Sodikow. It was very well attended, and all sorts of people shared memories from various perspectives—alums, family, colleagues. It was a good send-off, for a man who would have enjoyed a good send-off. Most people spoke with warmth and humor, and there was no question that many, many lives had been not simply touched but changed thanks to Soddie and the team that he built and supported for many years. The program lasted for a long time, but although my butt got a little worn out from sitting on those hard wooden Brx Sci auditorium seats, my mind seldom wandered. Strong praise indeed for all the speakers.

Then I went home and watched California Chrome not win the Triple Crown. Of all the horses coming close since Affirmed (although, as I’ve always said, I found Alydar even more impressive, because it takes heart to never give up and win every time but it takes heart and something else to lose every time and still never give up), this was the first one I was seriously rooting for. I didn’t bet anything (I lost all my discretionary gambling money betting the farm last year on Fred Robertson’s guaranteed Preakness pick), but that never matters for followers of the Sport of Kings. It’s all about the beauty of the thing.

Meanwhile the crowned heads of the NDCA, or as many as could get to it, were huddled down in Miami trying to rewrite the bylaws for the modern age. I would have loved to have been there, but alas, DJs and money are somewhat restrictive: there’s only so much of either to go around. There has been a steady flow of emails, though, and I’ve been trying to pitch in as much as possible. I wish I could iron out some of the website issues on my own—some of the data is well-buried beyond my reach and the listserver is temporarily moribund—but I trust CP will shortly pull us out of that. Meanwhile, don’t get me started on MJP, but of course, they did. Ugh. I know I can’t win, but I keep butting my head against it. It’s the first thing I want to talk about when I get the new podcast/broadcast off the ground, although the board may want to start elsewhere. We’ll see.

Next up, I need to read the latest Pup invite, and see that we’re all on the same page, and then I’ll look at the actual setup in tabroom.

September is almost here!

In which we see that 2014-2015 probably will happen

It’s about two and a half months till the DisAd. Time to shake away the cobwebs and nail everything down that isn’t already nailed. Not that there’s all that much that isn’t nailed, except for a few odds and ends and, on the important side, the FastPasses. I’ve gone over the tools in TouringPlans.com to figure out what passes to get, and now it’s just a matter of getting them. Of course, our best hope is that the parks aren’t too too crowded, which they shouldn’t be at that time of year. Except for Universal, which will probably be drowning in locals drawn to Diagon Alley. Negotiating Harry Potter is going to be the biggest deal of the entire trip, from the looks of it. I’m listening to the books, and am up to #3. I read them all, needless to say, and have seen all the movies, but I figured a refresher course wouldn’t hurt. And Stephen Fry doing the reading makes it slightly less than onerous.

Lots of planning going on in the debate world also. Nailing down the Pups, for one thing. That’s the problem with early tournaments—you have to plan early. Also there’s been the movement on the NYCFL front that I’ve already mentioned because of the national CFL meeting early in the season, and given that Catholic Charlie is now the Grand Imperial Poobah, he can’t exactly skip it, nor should his local regent, Mr. Beck. Where what will land I can’t quite say at the moment. And then we need to pin down the MHL workshop, but I’ll wait on that until O’C gets past the Soddie memorial this weekend.

It’s not only early tournaments getting the once over. There may be some big weekend switches in the new year, although no one’s committed yet. And God knows where the qualifiers will end up, since I know that JV and Catholic C want to move Districts, and there was a general shuffling of feet over the Last Chance, Even More Last Chance, Last Chance This Time We Really Mean It, and Last Chance This Time We Really Mean It More Than Last Time. Bump, on the other hand, will be where it has been in the middle of November, so don’t even think about it wandering off.

And speaking of Sailors, Capt Jake tells me he’s working on recruiting. This is good. It is also usually futile. Last year we get team members because the present team browbeat likely novices, prodding them personally to show up. That’s the Sailor way!

In which we launch the NDCA blog

I spent some time today putting together the inaugural post for the NDCA blog. http://www.debatecoaches.org/blog-1/ It is about as vanilla as a post can be, but the goal was to set up the blog, try out comments and tags, and generally see how things might work and how they would look. I’ve learned that you can do a lot with SquareSpace, but you do have to dig around a bit to find out how. What I’m not sure of is the comments, which look as if they’re set up to be moderated, but since I’m the moderator, it doesn’t ask to moderate when I make a comment. I’ll test that from a different machine that doesn’t know me when it sees me.

What I didn’t put in was the right-hand column. There you should be able to see past posts and search and find tags. All in the works, but one step at a time. As I said, I’ve got to dig around a bit to find each of them.

One of the value-added parts of CP staying at the Chez last weekend was that he detected interloping on my wifi, which I’ve never bothered to password protect because I figured if someone was stealing my signal, I’d sort of notice them sitting in my driveway. But apparently signal theft is no longer limited to the immediate vicinity if one has the right tools, so if you’re the person who’s been downloading GoT episodes before they’re broadcast, or worse, Rush Limbaugh episodes, your time is up. For the rest of you, the password is—No. Wait a minute. I don’t think that’s how that is supposed to work.

Of course, on the value-subtracted side, when we sat down last night to enjoy a little House of Cards, my Roku turned to me and asked why I had a password all of a sudden, and suggested I go online to figure out how to jump this particular fence. Hadn’t thought about that, but very little hoo-ha was required to settle down and start watching. And come to think of it, for years now people have toodled over to the chez and logged on to the legendary MenickNet wifi, and now they’ll have to know the secret code. Good luck getting it out of me. You can threaten my life with a railroad share, but once I go underground, I stay there.

And you might find it interesting that when the CFL was arranging its next calendar, it didn’t seem to notice that Yom Kippur fell on a particular Saturday. This is the down side of using the calendar in the rectory, guys, the one handed out by the Jesuits. There’s other calendars out there, with all the holidays, not to mention pictures of bathing beauties and firemen and kittehs or whatever else happens to press your particular buttons. Sigh.

In which we get together on the weekend

So I’ve been nursing an ailing tooth for a week now, waiting to get into the dentist’s today to finally have a root canal. Oh joy, oh rapture. Oh, well. At least my head won’t explode anymore every time I take a sip of coffee.

Caught up with the Usual Suspects over the weekend. CP came down, and we talked about his future as surf bum, among other things. I have this vision of him changing his name to Moon Doggy and wearing his baggies and waiting on the beach for the perfect wave, but he may have other ideas in mind. Met up with Kaz and JV and O’C and Kate and Richard and ate wonderful Italian food and gabbed like crazy. A lot of it was debate-oriented, but I promised Richard this would not be the case during the DisAd. After all, there is no debate in the summer for people to gossip about, and we’re certainly not still going to be talking about what happened at CatNats. (I know what you’re thinking. Something happened at CatNats? That’s what they said, and I’m going out on a limb and I’m going to believe them.) They were all also planning various hoo-ha-ishness over the upcoming NSDA powwow in Las Vegas, a venue worthy of planning various hoo-has. Aside from the NSDA part, I wouldn’t mind going…

Which does bring up the NSDA. Apparently it is now marginally public knowledge (since the Wunn and Only actually announced it somewhere) that tabroom.com is being subsumed by the Evil Empire NSDA, which actually is a good thing for all and sundry, insuring the endurance of a great system for managing tournaments, plus bringing the NSDA into something other than some Midwest operation that runs a tournament I can never go to. On the down side, this means that I’ll probably have to re-up, but I think I’ve made my point by now (especially since my local committee successors kissed and made up with Rippin’, pretty much entirely on the bases that I and so many others have been proclaiming since the Hundred Years War). So come the new school year, I will put my tail between my legs and shell out the Sailors’ money and get us back into the fold. And thus another great story ends with the proverbial whimper. Unfortunately, this time it’s me doing the whimpering.

For our weekend entertainment, we mounted a safari to Brooklyn, where we pretty much had to abandon Kaz in the Brooklyn Museum after she discovered their Egyptian collection. She mostly spends her free time acquiring information and photos and whatnot to inform her work teaching social studies, so this is as up her alley as you can get. She seems in fine fettle after acquiring a new school board and a lot of support from colleagues and grads to keeping the NFA debate program alive and well. Which of course always seems like such a no-brainer to those of us in the activity. That you have to hard-sell such a broad-based, empirically provable beneficial academic activity seems pretty counterintuitive, but somehow forensics remains the great underrated and often unknown educational tool that can do so much good in any school. Go figure.